spoke with a strongly-marked German accent. I gave him my father's
letter. Upon reading his name he cast a quick glance at me.

"Ah," said he, "it was but a short time Andréj Petróvitch was your age,
and now he has got a fine fellow of a son. Well, well--time, time."

He opened the letter, and began reading it half aloud, with a running
fire of remarks--

"'Sir, I hope your excellency'--What's all this ceremony? For shame! I
wonder he's not ashamed of himself! Of course, discipline before
everything; but is it thus one writes to an old comrade? 'Your
excellency will not have forgotten'--Humph! 'And when under the late
Field Marshal Münich during the campaign, as well as little
Caroline'--Eh! eh! _bruder_! So he still remembers our old pranks? 'Now
for business. I send you my rogue'--Hum! 'Hold him with gloves of
porcupine-skin'--What does that mean--'gloves of porcupine-skin?' It
must be a Russian proverb.

"What does it mean, 'hold with gloves of porcupine-skin?'" resumed he,
turning to me.

"It means," I answered him, with the most innocent face in the world,
"to treat someone kindly, not too strictly, to leave him plenty of
liberty; that is what holding with gloves of porcupine-skin means."

"Humph! I understand."

"'And not give him any liberty'--No; it seems that porcupine-skin gloves
means something quite different.' Enclosed is his commission'--Where is